Kariya's Grail
by imprimatur13
Summary: Chapter 1: Kariya dreams in darkness, and his thoughts come bubbling to the surface. A short character study. (Note: Originally published on AO3 as "The Rise and Fall of Matou Kariya." Thought this title was better, in hindsight.) Remaining chapters: Kariya has won the 4th Holy Grail War, and reflects on what happened.
1. Kariya's Delirium

Dark, cold... this is all I feel. Within this blind dreamscape, all that appears to me is the fruits of regret, ripened over my years. Every day I ponder the meaning of it all, forced to conclude that there is none. I hate this. I hate it so. I only ever wanted to be happy. This is why I departed from my Father's - from _Zouken's_ \- ways, meaning to live as a normal human being. To be _happy_. What had gone wrong? Why had I never achieved my dreams? Why has _Tohsaka_, that insufferable bastard whose only distinction from Zouken is his age, been blessed with everything I've ever wanted? The fucking stuck-up "aristocrat" couldn't care less about his family. His beautiful wife, his adoring daughters. Pitting them against one another is stupid and could never bring either of them happiness. Can't he see that they only want to live happy lives, playing together in the park as their mother smiles at them from afar? Where is the humanity in such a person?

I'm nothing like that. I could never be like _him_. As far as I'm concerned, such a person is the epitome of evil; he pretends to this great code of honour and morality, claiming that everything he does is for the "glory of Magic" and for the "wellbeing of his offspring;" but what the hell does he know about the wellbeing of his offspring? Sending Sakura to be violated day after day by the worst things my - Zouken - could possibly conjure up, forcing dear sweet Rin to lose her only sister and even to forget that she ever existed, making Aoi play the part of dutiful wife when I know she would rather be doing anything but... How could anyone be happy like this? How could anyone achieve their dreams, or rest in tranquility at the end of their lives, when their whole life is nothing but the suffering imposed on them for such useless reasons? The Root. Who cares about the fucking Root? All these Mages running around their whole lives, searching for something that probably doesn't even exist, and even if they _do_ find it, then what? Nobody knows what it is, or what it would even do for them. And yet they sacrifice everything, even a life of pure bliss, just for it? What godawful bastards, what idiots, what complete and utter fools.

I hate them.

I once had it all myself. I once lived as the heir to one of the three great Magical Families of the Grail; the Matou. And I went through everything that that entailed. And you know what? I was sick of it. All my life, I suffered with only one purpose: To eventually win the Holy Grail. Summon the hole to the supernal; complete the Third Magic. The Heaven's Feel. And for a while I went along with it. I suffered like I was supposed to, partly out of filial obedience to Zouken, partly out of the idea that someday my suffering might be rewarded with this legendary artifact. But the longer I went on like that, the more I began to feel that the whole thing was nothing more than a sham. Yes... It was all lies, all from the very beginning. It's so easy to see now. Zouken never cared about me, and I'm not even entirely sure he wanted the Grail, so much as he wanted to see me suffer. This sick man enjoyed the suffering of his own son. I can hear now his cackles of laughter as I lay in the pile of worms in that accursed basement, kept alive only by the slim hope that through what I was doing, Sakura might be saved some element of pain. But when it really comes down to it, who's to say that there was even anything left of her to experience that pain? The girl I saw that day was not Sakura; it looked like her, it spoke with her voice, but simply seeing the vacant expression in her eyes was enough to convince me that whatever had been done to her, whatever she had gone through, it had sapped her of everything she once was.

Why did I even go through with it, then? I don't know. Maybe I only did it to prove to Zouken that I could. Maybe some part of me, some stupid part of me, still craves his approval and respect. Even though I know now more than ever who he really is, and by all rights should actually despise him too much to care, it still satisfies something in me to know that I survived a year of the worms. I surpassed his expectations; I made him feel at a loss, not knowing who he was truly dealing with. Yes, that's right, old man. You underestimated me. Hah! See if I even give you the Grail, when I win; you certainly don't think I can do that either, but I'll prove you wrong. I will. No matter what it takes, I will. Even if Sakura will never be the same again, and even if Aoi-san will always continue in her brainwashed state as dutiful wife and mother, and even if Rin never really can undo the damage to her sisterly relationship; even if I can never save them all from their own personal Zouken, pulling their strings... I know that I will win the Grail. And when I do, goddamn it if I'm going to give it to Zouken just so he can keep his fetid corpse of a body alive a little longer. I know that there's no way he would ever honour the deal we made, to free Sakura. And I know that even if he did, he'd probably kill me for the fun of it... Ah, but it'd be worth it, no? Well, maybe. But I have a better idea.

I will win the Holy Grail, and I shall use its power to destroy this disgusting, evil world of Mages from the ground up. Oh, I know exactly what it is. I know that it's nothing more than a cursed fake, that can only bring sorrow, despair, and destruction. And that's exactly what I want. I shall use it to purge this world of the rotten cancer that is Magecraft in all its forms, so that never again will anyone have to suffer like me, or like Aoi-san, or Sakura, or Rin; we will all be freed from these eternal shackles that have bound us. We will once again walk easily in the sunlight, loving the world around us. We will share our slightest joys and sorrows, all united in simple happiness. I can't wait to see the faces, _their_ faces, contorted in pain and anguish as they see everything they had built up, all those lies for the sake of "Truth," come crumbling down around them. Yes, Zouken. You will know what it's like to suffer as I have; and I know that the greatest suffering of all to you would be seeing me happy.

So that, is exactly what I will do.

_The screams call me out, calling me out from myself. They promise solace, and redemption. They promise love._

_Zouken - Father, won't you scream for me?_

* * *

Erm... I just wrote this in like less than an hour so it's not really polished at all I'm afraid, but sometimes one is just seized by the Muse and has to put the words down, no matter what. In fact, I think short character studies are the ideal form of such ad hoc writing. Least for me, anyway.

So... Kariya. Biggest tragedy of Fate/Zero IMO. Poor sweet dude. I mean he's by no means perfect (cf. the church scene with Mr and Mrs Tohsaka), but in a sense it's just a real pity that he turned out that way. Zouken was right, you know. He is essentially rotten, and every day he just deteriorates further. Perhaps that is simply the nature of the Matou clan? Shinji's not much better, after all. Dunno about Shinji's dad, Byakuya, though I wonder if he's not just an adult Shinji...

Adult Shinji. Now there's a scary thought if there ever was one, eh?

Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any feedback, please feel free; otherwise, have a nice day!


	2. Pyrrhic Victory Part I - Tohsaka Tokiomi

Kariya has won the 4th Holy Grail War, and reflects on the events leading up to his victory.

* * *

I now have it. I killed them all; I made Tokiomi pay for what he did to Sakura, Rin, and Aoi. What an idiot, planning to use this weapon to reach the Root... not like it would have gotten him anywhere near his mythical goal. Hilarious, isn't it? I, someone who "abandoned the path of magic," a "disgrace," knows far more about this thing he has sought his entire life.

I remember him lying beneath me, begging me to let him live. Let him live for the sake of his family. Who the hell does he think he's fooling? He doesn't give a shit about his family; all he cares about is himself. He would sacrifice them for his magical ambitions in a heartbeat; he only sees them as tools for his research. As failsafes; contingency plans in case he can't reach his precious Root himself. Then he said he would share the Grail with me. That I could do what I wanted with it, as long as I allowed him to use it for research when I was done. At this point he must've been really desperate, to think that I would believe that. He would never let my heretical hands sully such an object; I knew he would kill me as soon as he could if I agreed.

So I killed him. Standing over his body contorted in fear, his face still somehow calm, I considered letting my insects devour him. But no, that was too good a fate for him. So I choked him. I choked him and I choked him. He started frothing at the mouth, and I got worried. I didn't want him to die just yet; he needed to suffer. After his limbs went limp, I put my ear to his breast and checked his heartbeat.

_thump ba-dump_

"Good, he's still alive," I thought. I then dragged his silent almost-corpse, soiled in his own urine and feces (so much for your "Honour of Mages"), to that accursed building. The place disgusts me to think about it, but at this moment only, I was glad it was there. It would make for fitting retribution for this man's evil. Start with him, and continue with the rest of the whole bloody lot.

Soon, we arrived in front of the Matou manor. I dragged the literal shit stain with me into the house, thinking about seeing Sakura in these halls. I wonder if Tokiomi ever thought about Sakura. Sakura, writhing in pain as the worms consumed her virginal essence. Sakura, who was just a lifeless shell after the worms had done their job, just sitting in the pit like a doll, unblinking. She was so happy, and he ruined it. How could any person do that-? No, no person could do that. No human. This thing I'm dragging here is not human at all; it is only a monster, a nascent vampire like Zouken. Oh, they're all the same. He might have looked at Zouken in contempt - no, wait. Who says he had anything but the highest respect for that mage among mages, Matou Zouken, a man who had practically achieved immortality through the practice of Magecraft?

"Fucking pig," I thought. Well, soon he would get what was coming to him.

We reached the door to the cellar. I opened it, and pushed him through the doorway. Lying on his back, I looked at his smug face. I bent down and punched it, feeling the satisfying break of a tooth. I opened his mouth and pulled out the tooth I had loosened, and stuffed it down his throat. He coughed violently, finally spat it out, as I watched in glee. He opened his eyes, and looked at me in disbelief, as if I couldn't possibly have defeated him. But I did, fair and square. I didn't resort to any of his trickery, preferring instead to fight with true self-respect, and not like a dirty coward masquerading as a brave man. His stupid face irked me.

I pulled him upright by his hair, and yelled at him, condemning him for what he had done. I told him how Sakura had suffered, and asked him if he regretted it at all. He just looked at me, and said he didn't know it would be so bad. This infuriated me. Of course he knew, how couldn't he? She was his dear sweet replacement, like a homunculus he could stick his ambitions inside for the next generation. He would never allow the pure vessel that she was to be ruined, nothing that would stop her from fulfilling his ambitions for the Root. I told him I was disgusted with him, and that if he didn't know what it was like, he would now.

He screamed not to be thrown in there, into the pit of worms that he knew perfectly well. Fucking liar. Not that I cared, of course. He wanted knowledge, didn't he? Well, the best kind of knowledge is experiential; sensory. And his senses would soon be overloaded with more pain than he could possibly withstand, with that pampered aristocratic body of his. So I threw him, revelling in his cries. And it only got better once he was in there.

Oh, he cried at first. As I stood outside, laughing at this amazing reversal of fortune, I began to think that this was too good to be true. What if he had another trick up his sleeve, a final trump card? Like the whole vile mass of worms would somehow jump out of the pit and devour me. Then I shook my head, and laughed instead at my own stupidity. Was I so used to being under the thumbs of these rotten mages that I still couldn't believe that I could win against them? Why shouldn't I be able to? I'm a million times better than they are; now that I've finally decided to take my rightful place above them, and cleanse the world of their evil, it's only right that I should be able to rejoice over their groaning corpses.

Forget that. I'm done being a sick, groveling pig destined to always live below others.

I rested in the mansion for a few days, as I gathered my strength for the next item on my agenda. Meanwhile, I came down to the cellar to check on Tokiomi a few times a day. As the flesh was slowly bitten off his bones, I got to see parts of him I never thought I would, and really didn't want to. It turned my stomach; the only reason I was able to handle the sight was the pleasure I got at knowing that this is how he met his end. I couldn't tear myself away from it, every bit of it simultaneously disgusting and satisfying me. After about two days, the meat on his skull was mostly gone, and I briefly considered separating it from the body and keeping it as a trophy. Well, more like a reminder; maybe put it in a glass case with a plaque reading "Sic semper tyrannis." Hmm... Mages are worse than any tyrant, though; tyrants kill our bodies, but mages kill our hearts and souls.

In the end I didn't feel interested in getting up close and personal with the Crest Worms again, so I let his skeleton remain where it was. Let them consume it totally. Live by Magecraft, die by Magecraft, as they say.

I had more important things to do, anyway. Before I could get my hands on the Grail and finally wipe out their whole miserable race, I had to get rid of one other Master: Waver Velvet.

Nothing personal, kid. You didn't seem too deep into this Magecraft shit and all the elitism that comes with it, and I'm sure you could probably have been a fairly decent person if you didn't get mixed up in this Grail War. It's a real pity, but for the sake of the children everywhere who would have to suffer under Magus parents and Magus elitism, never getting to experience true happiness, or love... I had to do this. I had to win the Grail to save them. It'd be great if you'd understood what I was fighting for, but maybe you were just too young to see the whole system for what it really was. A system of gears that grinds anyone caught in it to a bloody pulp. And sadly, you happened to be inside it when it was time for it to die.

* * *

Next time, I plan to go over Kariya's encounter with Waver. See you all then, and thanks for reading!


	3. Pyrrhic Victory Part II - Waver Velvet

After Tokiomi, only one Master remained: Rider's.

* * *

Ugh, this whole thing was painful from beginning to end. The whole war, I mean. Well, of course it was. Hell, my whole life was. Sure, there were some good bits. Aoi, Sakura, Rin... but like everything else good in my life, it was robbed from me by them. It's like those Mages can't stand to see me happy; whenever it seems like my luck'll turn around, they step in. This time was really the worst of it, though. They didn't even do anything, not directly, anyway. It was as if they had ruined me so much that no matter what happened, I could never be happy. I would ruin it all for myself.

Well, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here.

I had just liquidated Tokiomi, and now it was time to finish this war, get the Grail, and cleanse the world. There was one Master still alive, but fortunately his and Tokiomi's Servants had fought, and Tokiomi's won, of course. Apparently the Servant let him live, though? Smug bastard, probably didn't even consider him a threat. I couldn't risk him getting new Command Seals and screwing everything up for me, so I had to make sure that wouldn't happen.

The kid was a real amateur though; even I could find him pretty quickly. He was staying in a house with an old couple, maybe relatives of his? They didn't look like Mages, though, so I left them alone. I came when it was dark, middle of the night, and crept into the house. Nice, small house. Yeah, these definitely weren't Mages. Their house seemed too warm and happy. I don't know if they had kids, but if they did, they must've been raised with love. The pictures on the walls showed a happy, smiling family. Some baby pictures. Scuff marks on the walls where kids would have run into them, playing.

I can imagine Sakura and Rin growing up in a house like this. Nothing in their life but bliss of playing together, late nights talking to each other, dinner and breakfast with their family. With Aoi... and me. God, I wish. That can never happen now. Not after what I did. Even Aoi would probably never accept me, after what I did to Tokiomi. Well, that's fine. As long as she can be happy now, live with her daughters now, I'm happy. Even if she never speaks to me or sees me again, even if she never lets me see the girls again, I'll be happy. Just knowing that they're happy because of me, is enough to make me happy. And who knows? Maybe, one day, Rin or Sakura, when they're grown up and on their own, will decide to see me. Maybe they'll even take Aoi with them. When that happens, I'll be ready to accept them. I will love them, enough to make up for all the time we will have spent apart until then. Aoi will cry, and apologize to me for keeping them away from me for so long, and apologize to herself for not being with me. I'll hold her, tell her it's okay. We're together now, and we never need to be apart again.

I continued my search of the rooms. I wanted to check the whole ground floor before going upstairs, just in case someone was sleeping downstairs. Some more personal effects littered around, but after a while it became too much for me to bear. I had to separate myself from this life of happiness that i always wanted, lest I become too weak in the knees, my heart aching too much to go on with my task.

I headed upstairs, taking pains not to look at the pictures hanging on the walls, and saw a door before me. It was wooden, fairly nondescript, but it was only one of three doors on this floor. One other door had a towel hanging on the outside, so it was presumably a restroom. The third door was off to the side, and so I decided that the wooden door directly in front and the third door would likely be the only ones I'd need to check. I wanted to be methodical about this, and not give Rider's Master any time to escape if he noticed my presence, so I went to the first wooden door ahead.

I slowly opened it, taking pains not to make any noise. I was glad I had Berserker dematerialized by my side; in case the boy had his own Servant there, I'd be able to fight back. As I crept in, I saw him lying on his back in the bed, limbs sprawled out, and snoring lightly. It was almost a hilarious sight, and I thought for a brief second that maybe he was just an innocent kid, and not involved in this horrible ritual at all. Then I heard him muttering in his sleep. "Rider, Rider..." and I knew. I knew there was no chance at all that this boy was anything else but the Master of the Servant Rider, my rival - and enemy - in the Holy Grail War. I grabbed the knife from my pocket, and walked towards him, still careful not to arouse him.

I wondered where his Servant could possibly have been, and then I saw a receipt from a clothing store out of the corner of my eye. Don't tell me; this boy was so confident in the barrier he had placed around the house that he actually slept undefended, sending his Servant on minor errands? God, that sickened me. That arrogance - to think that no other Magus could possibly subvert his defenses. Honestly, even for me, it wasn't hard; the boy was clearly an amateur. I don't know how it happened that he joined the Grail War, but it was probably some combination of hubris and dumb luck that had kept him alive this long. Or maybe his Servant was strong, too; but that wouldn't be a problem here.

I removed the knife from my pocket. It had various runes on it, designed to allow it to pierce magical armour. The boy was unarmed, unconscious; I didn't need it. I didn't even need a weapon at all, let alone a Servant; I could have killed him with my bare hands. He rolled over in his sleep, and his Command Seals became evident to me. I knew I wanted them. I felt a hunger I hadn't felt in a while; there must be some way to cut off his arm and extract the Seals. What would I do with them, though?

There's no such thing as being too careful.

I drew the knife up, and brought it quickly down on the boy's exposed throat. Piercing the carotid artery and jugular vein, the blood spurted out of the wound, covering my face, hair, and clothing. Some of it got in my eye; momentarily blinded, I wiped it off with the sleeve of my free hand, and could then see what I had done. There was a massive, gaping hole in the boy's throat, his face contorted in a silent scream for help. His eyes ran with saltwater, and his mouth bubbled over with aerated saliva and blood. His head seemed as if it were only connected to his body by a bare string of tissue; one quick jerk and it'd roll right off.

I looked at his crushed visage, contemplating what had gone on inside that brain before it was starved of oxygen by my steel. The synapses firing, the thoughts flowing and sparking in his mind, all brought to a swift end at my hand. It filled me with a sense of power, even though it was just a kid. Still, this represented the final act in my journey to freedom and victory, and all that remained was to take my rightful spoils of war. I pulled the knife from his throat, causing an additional spurt of red blood of life to pop out at me.

I then turned from the head to the arm, my knife in my left hand, and holding his limp hand in my right. I traced my thumb over the red patterns of his Command Seals, and knew that I must make them mine; that I must take all the evil power of the Mages and use it for good, to redeem myself and the whole world with me. I lifted his hand up, and using my knife I cut it off at the wrist. the flow of blood further soiled my clothing, and left my hands sordid messes. I would wash them later, but first, I had to bring the Seals back to the Matou - the name still irks me, but what can I do? - manor, to take them into myself.

That Matou blood will follow me forever, dooming me to the grave. There is nothing I can do about it. The curses within it fill my body, and reduce me to a withered husk; it is all I can do merely to resist that tide pushing me down, and perhaps accomplish something good before I am destroyed. My body came from the worms, and in the end I know that it will return to them. This ever-present knowledge of death hovers over me like the Sword of Damocles, and renders me unwilling and unfit to properly live; I wish to sacrifice my life so that at least my end will have meaning. This meaning, is the salvation of the world from the hands of Magecraft.

So I got up to leave the house where I found Rider's Master, but on my way out I heard a terrible noise. It was like the clanging of dulled swords, their sharpness worn away by the blood and bone of men fallen underneath them. It shook my heart, and a chill crawled up my spine.

I instinctively called for Berserker to materialize, but there was no answer. In my mind I sensed a powerful hatred; surely that of my Servant, but where is he? Why isn't he appearing to defend his Master? Has he no regard for his own safety? He must know that if I die, his own mana source will dry up; even a Servant blinded by madness cannot help but have that inborn knowledge conferred by the Grail.

"Berserker!" I call out. "Appear, and sate your lusty anger with this new enemy!"

Not that there was any point in this overblown command; he would do nothing. I decided to use a Command Seal, and ordered him to appear. By this point I had realized that Rider must have been somewhere nearby, or else had sensed his Master's demise and come to avenge him before his own expiration. He would take me down on his way back to the Throne of Heroes, and I was essentially defenseless. Then Berserker appeared, but not in his customary armour. He had even taken off his helm, so his cruel face, twisted in anger was perfectly visible. Rider appeared, shouted some nonsense phrase about glory, and lifted his short sword to pierce me. I looked to Berserker for aid, but he merely watched with a sadistic grin curling his lips. I made a last effort to use another Command Seal to force the Servant to save me, but I looked at my hand, and saw there was none remaining. I had spent my last Seal on nothing? How typical... how exactly typical of me.

The short sword fell upon me, Rider shouting a battlecry, and I was prepared to accept it. I had been wrong to consider myself ascended at all above my former status; I was still exactly who I always was, and that was something that would never change. I would never be anything more than a crawling worm, doomed to die, crushed under the feet of those more powerful. If might was right, then I was certainly the most wrong person alive.

Suddenly, my entire world was bathed in a simultaneous dance of light and dark. Then the dancing stabilized into a scene. It was the cellar of the Matou manor, and I was in it. The worms were also in it, and my face was on all of the worms. They each had my features, each one disfigured differently. They seethed in a mass, and I felt that I was all of them at once. I felt the all-consuming hunger forcing me to go on, as a small maggot in a mass of millions of others, crawling over each other's bodies, continually deprived of the food we sought.

Then I saw Sakura, standing on the stairs leading down to the mass. The 'me' who was human, at the top of the staircase, called to her. Told her to come up to me, that I would protect her from them, and reunite her with her family. But she only laughed. I could only see her from behind at first, but then she turned around and looked at me. Her face was not her own; rather, it was Zouken's. And Zouken-Sakura laughed at me, and said, "Kariya, even to the very end you still harbor these delusions. Your suffering has brought me endless pleasure, and I suppose I should thank you for it. I would gladly trade any sort of immortality just to see your body convulsing for one more moment. Sadly, this joy of mine is at an end." He-She-? turned back to the writhing mass of worms, and jumped. I wanted to run to catch her, but I was immobile. I looked down at my feet, urging them to move, but only saw two thick trunks of Crest Worms. I looked down at my whole body, and saw that it was transforming into worms, and itself falling into the pit. I was then also the worms in the pit, and I saw a small purple form fall in. Eagerly, I jumped at it, and bit through its thighs to the source of life between them. The flesh tasted so good, and my worm-body was inundated with fresh fluids. I was bathed in life, but still I kept burrowing in, reaching the genitals and not stopping there, sensing the purest form of life beyond. I tunneled through, and in her womb I found it and rejoiced with the sensation of victory and power, afforded by the virginal essence I had consumed and become.

I opened my eyes to find myself naked in a church. I saw Tokiomi's corpse sitting in the pews, and rejoiced at his downfall. I saw myself enter the room, and again I could not move. I could only watch as the other 'me' taunted Tokiomi, apparently unaware of his death. Then I saw Aoi enter, and she ran to the other 'me' - no wait, she ran to Tokiomi! - and held him, and cried. She then screamed, and I was on top of her. I was strangling her, as her skirt lifted above her legs and I so desperately wanted to deny what she was saying, her accusations that I had no love. Of course I had love. I wanted to prove my love to her, force her to acknowledge it even though she didn't want to. I held her down with one hand, and with the other I tore her underclothes. I then inserted myself inside, tunneling through, finding true joy in her pulsating innards as her limp body did nothing. I reached in and burrowed through, content in my love.

I opened my eyes, and I was in my old childhood room. Aoi was standing in front of me, and asked me if I was satisfied with what I had done. This could not be, I thought. I had just been elsewhere, inside of her... I realized then what had happened. Having killed the final Master, I must have won the Holy Grail War, if only by a technicality. As Rider moved to kill me, the Grail must have appeared, and drawn me to these visions. But, why would it show me these things? For what purpose?

I spoke to what appeared to be Aoi. "Why do you don this false mask?"

"Oh? I underestimated you, Kariya," she said. "I expected you to run towards me and embrace me, as the living essence of all your desires. You do know that I am your beloved, the true desire of your heart?"

I spat at her. "I know what you are. I studied the Grail deeply in my youth, and its true nature is plain before me. Or should I say, your true nature, Angra Mainyu? I have no wish to embrace All the World's Evil just yet."

She chuckled. "I see. Well then, that expedites matters. I have shown you visions, sights that lay bare before you everything you truly want, in the depths of your body and soul. Shall I then-"

"Liar!" I shouted. "Perhaps this is just another one of your tricks, designed to make me wish for as much destruction as possible, but there is no way that I could ever want to hurt Sakura or Aoi. These are no wishes of mine; they are vile perversions you yourself created. I shall use you only for my real wish, and nothing else. Your evil will not be allowed to spread unchecked."

She tilted her head. "What do you mean, Kariya? You should know perfectly well that I have no such ability to fabricate. To be sure, I can twist ever so slightly a man's desire, but that is all. Only a little nudge in the right direction. You have only yourself to thank if you see visions of sadism, of raping and killing the women you claim to love-"

I was furious. There was no way I would allow this monster to speak of me like that, or of my love for Sakura and Aoi. It had to pay for what it forced me to go through, seeing such horrible nightmares. I would kill it. Even if it meant sacrificing everything that I had wished for, even if it meant my whole journey was worthless, I would erase this being from existence.

I ran towards the false Aoi, and grabbed her throat. I lifted her off the ground, and spat in her face. As she convulsed, and her mouth began to froth, she said, "It won't be so easy this time, you know. Not like when you did this to the real Aoi." I tighten my grip, her eyes begin to bulge out of their sockets. "You could do whatever you wanted to her; after all, she was nothing but a weak woman, who needed you to save her. Or am I wrong?" Her smug look never vanished from her face, and she continued to taunt me. "If you really were honest with yourself, you would know that I am not lying at all. I know you better than you know yourself, and I can tell that what I say disturbs you fundamentally. It could only do so to such an extent if it were true."

She coughed, and continued. "You may claim now that you wish to save Sakura, and that that is why you are doing this. That is why you have given up your dreams of happiness and normalcy, and gone back to the Matou manor. If so, now that you finally have what you have desired, why do you forsake it? Why do you want to kill me, the only one who can make your dreams real? Unfortunately for your sadistic impulses, Sakura is still alive! She still needs you, does she not? Don't tell me you're simply too selfish and weak-willed, an empty egotist too spineless to take a few sharp words? Or perhaps that's what you truly desire, Kariya? Perhaps you don't want to save Sakura at all; perhaps you never did."

I threw her down on the floor, and took the knife from my pocket. I began stabbing her, wishing only to quiet her lies. She still went on speaking, even as her limbs were severed. "Perhaps all this only reveals something latent in you, that you knew nothing of. Rather, you knew it, but you would never admit it to yourself. Perhaps what you really wanted all along was just revealed in your visions. I thought at first that the acts of violence against Sakura and Aoi were simply reflecting your true desire, and indeed I still believe it to be so, but it's becoming more likely that even that was just a smokescreen. A blindfold, to distract you from what you considered truly abhorrent. Ah, but what, you must be asking yourself, could possibly be worse?" At this point her limbs had all been severed from her body, and her torso sliced to ribbons. Her head was barely attached; I severed even that. As the blood flowed from the infinite wounds, as still-living organs strewn across the floor pulsated, sending blood and nutrients to nowhere, she continued to speak. What could I possibly have done to silence her? She is immortal; a monster.

"I posit this to you: perhaps what you really wanted was your own suffering? Anyone who looked at you could tell you were rotten; and not just bodily, after the implantation of Crest Worms. There was always something about you that was filled with the stench of rotting meat, something in your soul. Your origin is '[decay]', and your life has always been an expression of that. Why else would you have never taken the opportunity, though it had been present for years, to confess your love to Aoi? She always desired you, and you would have been a most acceptable match for her. Her family would have been overjoyed that one of the three great magical dynasties, who created the Third Magic, would take their daughter under their wing. You may have formed excuses for yourself since then, blaming Tokiomi for stealing her away from you, but how could that be? Aoi knew you and loved you for years before she met Tohsaka. You knew this, of course you did. But that fundamental nature, that guiding principle of yours forced you to choose the path of suffering and decay. Your wish died, your love died. And in its place, born from its rotten corpse, was the seed of hatred. On the surface, it only manifested as a hatred for Tokiomi, and a desire for Aoi; and later her children as well. A love. But inside, you were angry. You were angry at Aoi, for wanting you and making you suffer the pains of love, and for humiliating you when she decided to marry another after you declined her unspoken offers of matrimony. You were actually not angry at Tokiomi at all; in fact, you were grateful to him. He took away that burden of choice from you, that glowing opportunity in front of you that beckoned you with its shimmering light. If you had married Aoi you might have been happy, you might have loved her, you might have fathered her children; you might have lived. And that decaying nature of yours could not abide that."

At this point, I had thoroughly exhausted myself with the work of cutting her up into minuscule pieces. I sat down on the ground, and laid on my back, waiting for the blood loss to shut her up for good.

Still she wouldn't shut up; it seemed I would have to wait a while. I merely hoped she was suffering as much as I had been.

"Not only that, but you hated yourself too. The essence of [decay] now filling you had finally received a breeding ground in that small germ of hate you created for Aoi. It then grew, until it could not be satisfied with simply hating another. It desired fulfillment of its Will. It wanted to fully expand and create decay, but due to its intrinsic nature, it was housed in a weak body. Or rather, it was the weak body. Yours, specifically. So it saw no better target than itself, and to that end it generated something like the following in your mind: 'I hate myself for being weak, and unable to pursue Aoi while I had the chance. And I hate myself for desiring her, for wanting to live with her. I deserve to be punished for being weak, and so I will punish myself. I will make sure that I suffer, and I will relish the pain.' And so you did. You made sure to continue to spend time with Aoi and her daughters, instead of moving on, just so that you could always be confronted with the reminder of what you could have had, but didn't. You then took on this mission of selflessness, not to save Sakura, or anything like that. That's what you told yourself and everyone else, but it's not the real reason. What you really wanted was to set a goal for yourself that you knew would not come to pass. You knew that your Father would never keep his end of the deal, and release her. You wanted to suffer pursuing an unachievable goal, bringing yourself back to the powerless state you used to be in, under your Father's thumb. Because back then, you didn't need to make any decisions. You didn't need to live. You only had to suffer and be obedient to him, because you craved pain and hated life. This made you happy, then; your origin was satisfied in your endless self-flagellation."

I looked at the mouth speaking these words, and to my horror I saw that the disparate parts of its body, every fragment of skin and bone, were coming back together. The droplets of blood were sucked back into the reforming corpse, and as the joints popped into place, and the eyes filled their sockets, it began to stand. It slowly walked towards me on legs covered in patches of dermis and exposed blood vessels. As it approached me, those patches were covered with epidermis, and it finally reached me. Aoi - it had returned to her form - looked down at my helpless body from above, and with a look of scorn on her face, continued speaking. I could not do anything; I was simply too weak. Far too weak.

"So here I offer you what you always wanted. Not revenge on the Mages. You loved their oppression; you were their willing lapdog. Not Sakura's salvation. You hated her for not being yours, for calling another man 'Father.' No, I offer you something nearer to your own heart. I offer you pain on a scale heretofore undreamed by men. I offer you the opportunity to be the vessel of All the World's Evil, to accept every curse within yourself. Your screams of agony will send your outer mind to insanity, while your origin delights in their music."

She bent down, her beautiful green hair cascading in front of her face. She caressed my cheek, and whispered. "Kariya. Let me kill you, granting you the death of life and liberation by bondage. Let the decay consume you, reducing your mind to a shattered vessel of madness, and reach an apotheosis of fulfillment in decomposition. Then let it consume itself, and let it do so infinitely many times, losing a little substance each time, until there is nothing left but Void. Then your soul will be flung from one end of the Spiral to the other for all eternity, and the chaos of creation and decay will never end for you. If that is not the happiness you desire, feel free to reject me. Otherwise, open yourself to me, and swallow me. I think I know which you shall choose."

Her face was directly above mine. She opened her mouth, and I saw nothing but black inside. Like it was a portal to absolute nothingness. Then a sludge began to accumulate, and drip out of the opening. It fell upon my face, and it burned my skin. I felt like I was going to die.

I wanted more.

I opened my mouth, and Aoi smiled. The black sludge flowed into my throat, instead. I was suffocating under its weight, and my throat was burning with pain, but somehow remained intact. It flowed into my lungs, until every sac of air within them was breathing the sludge. I felt all the manifold curses of man inside me. I felt their hatreds, their grudges, their resentments. They mirrored my own, and magnified them. Like a curved mirror reflecting the light of the sun, focusing it on a single point with such ferocity that its target is set aflame, the curses of All the World's Evil magnified my own decay.

I felt my body begin to disintegrate, becoming absorbed by the sludge overflowing from my mouth. It formed an ever-growing puddle around me. There was no sign that it would ever stop pouring out of Aoi's mouth, and soon the entire room's surface was covered in it. It began rising, and as it threatened to cover me totally in its embrace, I felt my body dissolving. I was being swallowed by the sludge, and becoming it. I heard the voices screaming pain and rage, and I rejoiced in my fellow sufferers. They were coming inside of me, filling my essence.

My previous visions flashed before me, filling my mind's eye, as my physical eyes disintegrated. Yes, this is what I have always wanted. On the precarious balance between the joys of self-torture and its pain, I had delighted. But this new experience was unlike that. It was not only more intense, it was also different. Because now, no matter how much I suffered, I could not die and be forced to discontinue my joy. As a part of Angra Mainyu, I would live forever, cursing existence and humanity.

A voice (Aoi's, or my own?) then spoke.

"I hate you, Matou Kariya. I curse you eternally. May you never have rest from your suffering, and may your essence shrivel and die, and shrivel and die, in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. May the pain drive you mad, and may the delusions of madness bring only more pain. May you long to swallow the world, but be held back by your own insignificance. May you long to lick the boots of those who curse you, and may you curse yourself above all others."

My last distinct thought was only a mental image. I was back in the cellar, and I was prostrating myself on the ground before Zouken-Sakura. There was a staff on my head, and it was drilling into me. A hole opened, and instead of blood, Crest Worms soaked in the black sludge of Angra Mainyu poured out. Then I was no longer myself; I was Zouken-Sakura.

And I laughed, and laughed.

* * *

Thanks for reading!

After a decently long hiatus, filled with writer's block, I finished this over the last 2 days or so. I've been reading Freud's "On the Interpretation of Dreams," and I think its influence shows in the dream/vision sequences, as well as some other areas.

Listened to a lot of Green Day, too. Perhaps the "emo" vibe of Jesus of Suburbia and Boulevard of Broken Dreams influenced this as well. I could see Kariya enjoying Boulevard; walking alone on that lonely road of his.

There is some Kara no Kyoukai influence as well, with the inner contradiction between decay and life, though I think this Kariya is quite distinct from that.

Those who have read my other works will probably know by now that I very much enjoy the whole "identification with the other" business, here demonstrated by Kariya's identifying with Zouken-Sakura. (As an aside, I wasn't really sure what name I should use to refer to Sakura with Zouken's face, but hopefully this one was good.)

Hope y'all liked it. I certainly enjoyed writing it, even if it was really exhausting to think of stuff as twisted as this. Takes a lot out of you, heh.


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